Council trio should find better way to flex fiscal muscle than deny help to needy

The Austin Shelter for Woman and Children, which is operated by the Salvation Army, on Thursday, October 8, 2015. Expanding the shelter is the centerpiece of the Salvation Army’s first capital campaign in more than 27 years, with the hopes of buying seven adjacent acres to the current facility. The land would house a new building which would double the amount of woman and children the shelter can serve. DEBORAH CANNON / AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Why on earth would Austin city leaders block money for the venerated Salvation Army?

Yet that is what three city Council Members did when they suddenly, because of absences, had the power to nix $210,000 in funding that already had been approved – and budgeted. In other words, the Council’s duty at that point was simply to cut a check.

The move last week by Council Members Ellen Troxclair, Sheri Gallo and Don Zimmerman was aimed at flexing their fiscally-conservative muscle regarding budget matters. But their actions were neither fiscally sound nor morally defensible, particularly considering that the money was to expand social services at the organization’s Austin Shelter for Women and Children.

It was, however, a civics lesson in how Austin’s 10-1 council conducts business.

The American-Statesman’s Nolan Hicks reported that the money was blocked by procedural gridlock because it lacked the necessary six votes to be approved. It seems that it takes six votes of the 11-member council, and not just a simple majority, to approve any item. Mayor Pro Tem Kathie Tovo could find only five votes in favor of the grant for the Salvation Army because Mayor Steve Adler and Council Members Delia Garza and Ann Kitchen were in Washington, D.C., to campaign for a $40 million federal transportation grant in the Smart Cities Challenge. Hicks reported that the conservative trio effectively vetoed dozens of minor measures along with the Salvation Army’s grant funding.

And as Tovo noted, it’s disappointing that the vote to postpone the Salvation Army’s grant also failed by the same three votes.

Gallo, a self-described fiscal conservative, but moderate on other matters, told me she voted to block the grant, along with other spending from the general fund, because the city’s stabilization reserve fund had dropped below 12 percent, the level required by council’s financial policy.

Gallo added that City Manager Marc Ott has yet to provide a plan on replenishing it. Replenishing it, Gallo said, would have to be done through the general fund, the same source for the Salvation Army grant. Stabilization reserves dropped because the fund was tapped about $400,000, Gallo said, to steer more money to salaries of lifeguards at city pools. As a reserve, the stabilization fund is used for unexpected expenses or emergencies.

“It’s very important to make sound decisions that comply with the city’s financial policy,” Gallo said, adding that her constituents expect her to be vigilant over city spending that impacts their taxes and other costs. “We can’t fund everything so it’s a balance of decisions.”

Troxclair and Zimmerman did not respond to messages I left Friday by email and phone.

I appreciate Gallo’s position. But in holding up money for women and children experiencing homelessness, those council members missed an opportunity to demonstrate a different kind of conservatism — the compassionate kind.

In Austin, women and children are the fastest-growing segment of a homeless population that has ballooned to nearly 2,200 people on any given day, according to the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition. On average, more than 400 women and children in Austin are living from place to place — including in cars, under bridges and in other unsafe conditions — while they wait to access shelter and other social services needed to help them move toward self-sufficiency, Salvation Army officials have said.

And the Salvation Army’s Austin Shelter for Women and Children is on the front lines of serving them. It gave shelter to 367 women and children and helped move 246 to stable housing last year. Why hold these folks hostage over what amounts to a tiny amount in the scope of a near $1 billion city budget?

Tovo said the item will return to the Council agenda on Thursday and expects it to pass with a full council present. That is good.

As a former member of the Salvation Army’s advisory board several years ago, I got a first-hand look at what the Christian-based organization does in the Austin area. The experience changed me. I no longer could look past the many homeless people on our streets without seeing my own responsibility as my brother’s and sister’s keeper. I was so moved by the Salvation Army’s long, compassionate reach that I made it the top charity on my list of giving, and have continued to do so.

Most years I personally drop off a check at their East Eighth Street headquarters. It’s not an easy walk up those steps, past dozens of men and women, disheveled and smelling of the night before, but it’s a necessary walk – one those council members should make.

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